The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a physical activity intervention program designed to enhance levels of engagement in PA. Despite robust evidence supporting the beneficial effects of PA on overall health, only about 22% of individuals engage in the recommended minimum amount of PA. Recent surveys suggested that most individuals express intentions to be physically active, though the psychological state of amotivation dismissed these struggles. In the current study, we pilot-tested a new intervention program, (...) aimed at enhancing engagement in PA among sedentary individuals. The intervention was based on two behavioral change and motivational psychological frameworks: Self-Determination Theory and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. During a 14-week intervention program, 94 sedentary Israeli college students were randomly assigned into one of three groups: SDT and ACT-based intervention, traditional intervention, and a non-treatment group. Prior to and following the intervention, participants completed the Behavioral Regulation in Exercise Questionnaire-3 to examine motivation to exercise and the International Physical Activity Measurement IPAQ to evaluate their training frequency. Results showed that the SDT and ACT-based intervention group exhibited a significant increase in motivation to exercise between time 1 and time 2, while the other two groups showed insignificant differences in motivation to exercise. Furthermore, neither of the groups showed significant differences in their training frequency per week. However, those in the SDT and ACT-based groups reported an increase in activity intensity from time 1 to time 2 compared to the two other groups. Further, exercise psychology consultants and scholars can use the intervention protocol and utilize these findings to improve PA behaviors and promote health in the general population. Limitations, future directions, and implications are discussed in detail. (shrink)

Research concerned with human beings is always an interference of some kind, thus posing ethical dilemmas that need justification of procedures and methodologies. It is especially true in social work when facing mostly sensitive populations and sensitive issues. In the process of conducting a research on the emotional life histories of Israeli men who batter their partners, some serious ethical questions were evoked such as (a) Did the participants really give their consent? (b) What are the limits of the researcher-participants (...) relationship and who decides them? (c) For whom is the study beneficial? and (d) To what degree did the methodology fit with the participants? In this article, I discuss the Socratic idea of truth revealed through dialogue and the idea of reciprocity that was developed in Buber's (1949) ethics of dialogue and Habermas' (1990) communicative ethics. The 3 essential conclusions drawn from the ethical questions raised and the discussion of the thinkers that are mentioned previously are (a) dialogical methodology is ethically justified; (b) dynamic interactions give a more holistic perspective of the human nature, thus enriching the field; and (c) through dialogical methodology both researcher and participant profit from growth of knowledge, which is a key for empowerment and change. (shrink)

This paper examines moral dilemmas faced by family caregivers of older adults who employ live-in migrant care workers. Being both a family caregiver as well as an employer of a live-in migrant care worker often puts family members at a crossroad, where moral decisions must be made. Lacking a formal role, family members do not have a professional code of ethics or other clear rules that can guide their actions, and their choices are rooted in cultural, community, familial, and personal (...) values. This paper discusses moral dilemmas that result from family caregivers’ dual commitment, to the wellbeing of their older sick relative who is the recipient of care, and to the wellbeing of the live-in care worker whom they employ. The paper uses relational ethics as a theoretical framework to discuss three cases that involve complex moral decision making in real life. (shrink)

We conducted in-depth interviews to investigate maternal- fetal medicine (MFM) physicians’ feelings about their moral thoughts and dilemmas related to providing feticide for lateterm abortion in Israel. We interviewed 14 MFM physicians (who constitute approximately 40 percent of MFM physicians who perform feticide in the countr y) from five hospitals in Israel during 2018 and 2019. They were recruited via personal acquaintance and snowball sampling. Findings reveal that despite their clear recognition that feticide is a necessary procedure, all describe themselves (...) as suffering from some features of moral distress related to the process. The reasons for these difficulties are rooted in the Israeli law regarding late abortions, as well as in some of the organizational procedures for making this kind of medical decision. They also come from professional and emotional dilemmas that the physicians encounter. The findings reveal a strong need for more open discussions and sharing of doubts with colleagues regarding each case of feticide. These findings build on existing knowledge and may be useful in developing strategies to support clinicians who provide these essential but sometimes difficult services. (shrink)

Given the great importance of morality and values in modern sports, especially among young athletes, in this pilot study, we sought to broaden the exploration of the factors that may play role in these contexts, which have not been widely researched to date. Accordingly, the study tested the relationships between sport type (team or individual) and parenting styles (authoritative vs. non-authoritative), and moral decision-making in sport and sport values among 110 adolescent athletes whose age ranges from 11 to 22 (M= (...) 16.04,SD= 2.86). The findings indicated that participants with authoritative parents, as compared to those with non-authoritative parents, are significantly less accepting of cheating in sport, while they also tend more to keep winning in proportion and hold significantly stronger moral values toward sports. Moreover, participants whose main sport is a team sport type tend to accept more cheating and gamesmanship than participants whose main sport is an individualistic sport type. While no differences were recorded between these groups in moral values, team athletes tend to value status in sport more than individual athletes, while the latter tend to value competence regarding their sport. The implications of the findings are discussed in light of no interaction between the effects of parenting styles and sport type on moral and sport values. (shrink)

This book, steeped in the traditions of both postcolonial theory and Continental philosophy, addresses fundamental questions about God and theology in the postcolonial world. Namely, Y.T. Vinayaraj asks whether Continental philosophies of God and the 'other' can attend to the struggles that entail human pain and suffering in the postcolonial context. The volume offers a constructive proposal for a Dalit theology of immanent God or de-othering God as it emerges out of the Lokayata, the Indian materialist epistemology. Engaging with (...) the post-Continental philosophers of immanence such as Gilles Deleuze, Giorgio Agamben, Catherine Malabou, and Jean-Luc Nancy, Vinayaraj explores the idea of a Dalit theology of God and body in the post-Continental context. The book investigates how there can be a Dalit theology of God without any Christian philosophical baggage of transcendentalism. The study ends with a clarion call for Indian Christian Theology to take a turn toward an immanence that is political and polydoxical in content. Y.T. Vinayaraj teaches Theology at the Dharma Jyoti Vidya Peeth and Nav Jyoti Post-Graduate Research Centre (NJPGRC), New Delhi, India. He holds a PhD from Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, USA, and is an ordained minister of the Mar Thoma Church. His research areas are Continental philosophy, cultural hermeneutics, and Dalit theology. (shrink)

This article discusses different conceptions and translations of the devadasi system in transnational Dalit feminist activism. I focus specifically on activist participation at the 1994 Asia Tribunal on Women’s Human Rights in Tokyo, Japan and the construction of an analogy between the experiences and struggles of devadasis and that of ‘military comfort women’, i.e. women from Japan’s former colonies who were abducted and raped by the Japanese military during World War II. I argue that strategic claims of commonality are (...) part of the process of making specific, local practices legible to a global audience and that these sorts of claims also enable transnational feminist activism and solidarity. (shrink)

This article tackles caste-based poverty by a focus on the position of Dalit women in India. Of 200 million Dalits, nearly 50% are women, often referred to a ‘thrice Dalit’, as they suffer from the triple oppressions of poverty, being female and being female Dalits. They are frequently let down by both the Dalit movement itself as well as the women’s movement in India that focuses more on social problems like dowry deaths—more relevant for caste women and (...) not those outside the caste system. Many Dalit women are denied access to education, to meaningful employment, health provision and are the first to suffer the negative effects of globalization. Access to upper caste wells is forbidden. Worst of all, Dalit women are exposed to many forms of violence and are frequently raped as a way to humiliate Dalit men. The degrading work of ‘scavenging’—removing human excrement-falls mostly on Dalit women, since men are more likely to be ‘upwardly-mobile’. Despite all of this, a new strength now emerges in challenging caste boundaries, contributing to self esteem and a stronger sense of identity. The strong spirituality of Dalit women has sustained strength through songs and stories, and in some cases by subverting patriarchy through ironically re-shaping traditional myths. The article ends by suggesting forms of action from Church, society and feminist theology to show solidarity and effect social change for Dalit women. (shrink)

As the lowest in the caste hierarchy, Dalits in Indian society have historically suffered caste-based social exclusion from economic, civil, cultural, and political rights. Women from this community suffer from not only discrimination based on their gender but also caste identity and consequent economic deprivation. Dalit women constituted about 16.60 percent of India’s female population in 2011. Dalit women’s problems encompass not only gender and economic deprivation but also discrimination associated with religion, caste, and untouchability, which in turn (...) results in the denial of their social, economic, cultural, and political rights. They become vulnerable to sexual violence and exploitation due to their gender and caste. Dalit women also become victims of abhorrent social and religious practices such as devadasi/jogini, resulting in sexual exploitation in the name of religion. The additional discrimination faced by Dalit women on account of their gender and caste is clearly reflected in the differential achievements in human development indicators for this group. In all the indicators of human development, for example, literacy and longevity, Dalit women score worse than Dalit men and non-Dalit women. Thus, the problems of Dalit women are distinct and unique in many ways, and they suffer from the ‘triple burden’ of gender bias, caste discrimination, and economic deprivation. To gain insights into the economic and social status of Dalit women, our paper will delve more closely into their lives and encapsulate the economic and social situations of Dalit women in India. The analyses of human poverty and caste and gender discrimination are based on official data sets as well as a number of primary studies in the labor market and on reproductive health. (shrink)

In India, Dalits faced a centuries-old caste-based discrimination and nowadays indigenous people too are getting a threat from so called developed society. We can define these crimes with the term ‘atrocity’ means an extremely wicked or cruel act, typically one involving physical violence or injury. Caste-related violence has occurred and occurs in India in various forms. Though the Constitution of India has laid down certain safeguards to ensure welfare, protection and development, there is gross violation of their rights such as (...) killing, murder, torture, burning, abduction, rape and molestation. According to a report by Human Rights Watch, “Dalits and indigenous peoples (known as Scheduled Tribes or adivasis) continue to face discrimination, exclusion, and acts of communal violence. Laws and policies adopted by the Indian government provide a strong basis for protection, but are not being faithfully implemented by local authorities.” Human rights issues are very often understood and analyzed from socio-political and cultural perspectives. Apart from such perspectives, the issue of human rights also can be analyzed from a strictly philosophical perspective, which implies that the idea of human rights is centered on the inspiration of human dignity. Several studies on the situation of human rights of Dalits in several parts of India show more reports on violation of human rights than on protection of them. Dalits are discriminated against, denied access to land, forced to work in degrading condition, and routinely abused at the hands of the police and higher-caste groups that enjoy state protection. For example, Dalit women are regularly subjected to sexual violence as a result of their lower caste status-often in response to their demands of basic rights. Hate crimes towards indigenous peoples is a daily reality in many countries across the globe. The challenge is to change such a dehumanized situation. The challenge is to each one of us that whether engaged in governance of the civil society or voluntarily engaged in social and economic development of society, one thing to remember is that leaving behind the vulnerable units of our society – Dalits and indigenous peoples – will not take us to a prosperous society. This paper is an attempt to study the situation of human rights of two most neglected segments of society namely, Dalits and STs as a serious international human rights issue. (shrink)

Veeraswamy, JD; Gogineni, Babu As part of the Adopt a Dalit Village Project the following awareness programs were organized to help bring the Dalits of Ravulapally out of a life of superstition and to point them to a life of scientific temper. This was done through various activities, all of which were aimed to provide an overall boost to the human development of the community, by involving them in their own growth, in such a manner as to build capacity (...) and capability within the community. (shrink)

Veeraswamy, J At the outset, we would like to extend our heart-felt thanks to the Council of Australian Humanist Societies who adopted Ravulapally village and to IHEU which conceived of the project aimed at freeing Dalit villages from superstition and helping them achieve overall development.

This introductory chapter sets out the rationale for the ensuing chapters and their division into different parts. It also provide an overall and comprehensive prologue to the Gramsci-Ambedkar encounter. Indeed, "parallels are strong and very striking for two thinkers who are otherwise so different - in political experience, philosophical background and ideas of effective strategy" (Jon Soske, personal communication). Nevertheless, the moral fabric of their political commitment to Dalits/subalterns bring them very close, particularly in the upholding of Gramsci's 'intellectual and (...) moral reform' and Ambedkar's 'social and moral consciousness of society'. (shrink)

Traditionally, the three-pronged mission of our colleges and universities has been to provide high-quality education, encourage cutting-edge research, and promote professional and community service. The substitution of business-based policies for sound academic principles, however, has institutionalized a form of professional inequality that threatens all three. The growing distinction between tenured and tenure-track faculty members on the one hand and tenure-ineligible lecturers or part-time adjuncts on the other has produced an academic caste system that is undermining the raison d’être of our (...) institutions of higher learning. This system is capricious, discriminatory, and unjust. (shrink)

In this short title, we are presenting three essays on the philosophy of Dr. B.R.Ambedkar which discussed his ideas on casteism, social change, education, social justice, education, women issues, and democracy etc. These essays are the revised version of papers presented in the National Seminar on “Ambedkarite Quest on Egalitarian Revolution in India” (26th & 27th November, 2013) organized by the Centre for Dr. B. R. Ambedkar Studies, Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra, Haryana. In the end of this book I included a (...) chronology of life events of Dr. B.R.Ambedkar as an annexure. Hope this book will be helpful to understand his intention of social revolution and motivate us to be conscious about our duties and work for the higher goal rather than follow personal pleasure. I am thankful to all the members of Milestone Education Society (Regd.), Pehowa (Kurukshetra) for their continuous effort to propagate Dr. B.R.Ambedkar’s ideology as well as their positive efforts to provide quality and fruitful education to the weaker section of society. (shrink)

This article examines the existing and emerging morphology of caste-based discrimination in urban and academic spaces in India. Practices of caste-based profiling are similar to racial profiling or policing but are not acknowledged as caste-based discrimination by the public and the law, since they do not match constitutionally recognized practices of discrimination like untouchability. Caste-based profiling is deeply ingrained in how upper-caste people in urban and academic spaces speak, read, and think. Profiling performs the same function as untouchability, since it (...) weeds out the Dalit from public spaces that pretend to be liberal and secular. Profiling is part of a larger process of “casteization,” which ensures the continuation of caste-based discrimination in newer forms to maintain caste hierarchy and upper-caste hegemony. Profiling traps the urban Dalit in a conundrum with respect to self-representation—should they reveal their Dalit identity to build solidarity with the Dalit, Bahujan, and Adivasi community but risk social ostracization and stigmatization, or should they hide their Dalit identity and try to evade caste-based discrimination? This article defines the emphasis of a new political movement inaugurated by Dalit writers called “Dalitude,” which attempts to break out of this conundrum, challenges casteization, and aims to empower a lower-caste majority. (shrink)

Dalit studies are making a come back. This is also reflected in the field of Indian Christian theology where Dalit theology has emerged as a separate discipline and not simply as a branch of theology. Dominant forms of discourse have the disconcerting habit of raising questions like ‘relevance’ and ‘viability’ which forces people to enter into the ‘bypass mode’. Questions raising issues like ‘reality’ and ‘representation’, often lead to internecine conflicts that help no one but the dominant discourses. (...) Although much has been achieved, including major interventions in the field of Biblical studies and hermeneutics and the rediscovery of Dalit literature, there is much that still needs to be done in the field of Dalit theology. (shrink)

The paper's goal is the understanding of the ̔ fear of the other̕ within the Contemporary Indian Literature context and, in particular, through dalit women literature. I have selected four hindi dalit poems because they represent dalit women’s voice and they capture their agonies, pains and the dominant caste males vs females’ fear, the so called ̔fear of the other̕. It becomes inscribed into dalit women’s minds, as evidenced by many contemporary poems, so much so that (...) women can be said to experience an ̔enviroment of fear̕ enveloping their lives. For this reason, the paper is divided into four main parts: first, an introduction on dalit women issue; second, a brief analysis of the dalit women’s fear; third, how Hindi language can affect the society an and fourth, an analysis of poems written by eminent dalit poetesses together with the picture of dalit women arised from this literature. Finally, it is taken into consideration the translation from dalit women’s poems in Hindi into another language as a case study for a worldwide spread and awareness on the issue. Dalit Women. (shrink)

The economics of female sexuality in India are embodied in the caste system, which allocates women of certain caste groups to the domestic sphere and relegates Dalit/lower caste women to religious/sacred prostitution. The dominance of Shudra (often OBC) castes over religious spaces further marginalized Dalits and vulnerable lower-Shudra castes pertaining to the sexual exploitation of men and women within the institution of sacred prostitution. Shudra (OBC) castes’ hold over religious institutions in contemporary society facilitated the hegemony of the Brahminic (...) ideology of caste and patriarchy even in the lower-caste religious practices like worship of female deities such as Yellamma in south India. This article discusses the religious aspects of the oppression of Dalits (outcastes) shaped by lower-caste religiosity through a study of the conditions of Dalit men and women who are dedicated to the temples of village deities and are varyingly called Jogta, Jogtin, Jogini, Potaraju, Matangi/Matamma, Shivashakti, Basavi, and Murali in different regions of south India. The current study is based on the experiences of Joginis and Jogtas from Telangana and Marathwada region of the state of Maharashtra. This article explores the livelihood aspect of the Jogini system, in other words, the economic vulnerabilities shaped by caste hierarchies that result in the perpetuation of the practice of sacred prostitution; how the caste hierarchies refigure in the reorganization of masculinities through the institutions of Jogini and Jogta; and how the question of Dalit self-respect is construed by Joginis and Jogtas within the paradigm of religious institutions. (shrink)

Based primarily on original sources in Tamil as well as interviews, the article seeks to portray the attitude of Tamil Dalit intellectuals and political leaders towards the question of religion. It seeks to discover the role of religion in their discourse and how they utilise religious matters to mobilise their fellow caste members. It maps their efforts to distance themselves from Hinduism and to propagate the particularity of Dalit deities and Dalit religion as a part of their (...) newly constructed identity. Their opinions on the possibility of conversion are also briefly noted. These attitudes are examined from the viewpoint of the differing emancipation strategies of the three major Tamil Dalit castes. The Paraiyar as well as the Arunthaiyar leaders try to reject the Hindu identity, though the common folk consider themselves to be Hindus. The Devendrars on the contrary associate themselves with the Hindu gods and Hindu temples, they claim direct connection with some of them. Even they, however, tend to emphasise particularity of their deities as a part of their identity building. (shrink)

Echoing bell hooks’s discussions on “black rage,” this article explores the politics of “Dalit rage” by juxtaposing some instances of projections of Dalits as an “angry,” “illiberal,” and “intolerant” constituency with examples of anger from Dalit literature. While these projections in “mainstream” media and caste Hindu–dominated civil society narratives often represent them as engulfed in the emotive states marked by anger, intolerance, and impatience, the instances from Dalit literature archive a “Dalit rage” that demands to be (...) dissociated from the Nietzschean category of ressentiment. Through B. R. Ambedkar’s readings of Nietzsche in Philosophy of Hinduism and Nietzsche’s readings of Manu’s Manavadharmashastra in Twilight of the Idols, this article draws a fine line of differentiation between Nietzsche’s contempt for ressentiment and Manu’s disdain for anger. “Dalit rage” occupies a distinctly different thymotic space and articulates a Dalit predicament that exploits rage as a marker of protest, resistance, and caste-ridden social conflicts. This article shows why we cannot bracket Nietzsche’s contempt for ressentiment with Manu’s demands of the sudras (and, in extension, other “lower castes”/Dalits) to be “meek” by exploring Manu’s perpetuation and legitimization of the varna order through a “morality of breeding” and Nietzsche’s more wholesale rejection of morality as he deems it a pia fraus (moral fraud). Thus this “Dalit rage” offers us a repository of the limits of a liberal democracy and enables an Ambedkarite reading of Nietzsche whose project of constructing ubermensch is markedly different from Manu’s “morality of taming” through a “morality of breeding.”. (shrink)

Gogineni, Babu Ravulapally village in Nalgonda District of Andhra Pradesh was enrolled in the 'Adopt a Dalit Village project' as it received generous support from the Council of Australian Humanist Societies in 2012.

Anti-caste movements in India have a long history. Cultural heritage became and remains a site of political contestation by excluded communities searching for identity and equality, and gender remains at the core of their engagements. The meanings underlying the more homogenous term of ‘Dalit’ used today are part of a historical process of self-definition. Moreover, diverse Dalit countercultures suggest varied social domains in which Dalit communities are located. South Asian historiographies have been critiqued as denying histories and (...) historical agency to Dalits. Yet Dalit studies have developed epistemologies, bringing articulations and ideas from the margins to the centre of writings on history, leading to debates around caste that have transformed notions of politics. This paper draws from one such trajectory through a nonlinear narrative, juxtaposing the intergenerational contexts of engagements: my mother Dakshayani's political and life experiences, as narrated in her autobiography (1912–1978), and my own experience in the Dalit women's and other movements in the 1980s and 1990s. While my experience saw the onset of liberalisation and the emergence and growth of ‘new social movements’, the context of Dakshayani's narrations is the Pulaya (agrestic slave caste) community in the early 1900s in Cochin, a community in the process of transforming itself. Both narratives highlight how radical traditions within the Dalit women's movement over time have consciously and critically addressed anti-caste movements, social reform, the state, peoples’ movements and the nation within a conceptual framework of equality, liberty and non-discrimination. (shrink)

Nanda's irresponsible book carelessly prescribes for the U.S a return to Cold-War science politics; and for India, nothing less than a cultural revolution which would install science as the arbiter. She sees this as smashing the backwards looking metaphysics of Hindu thought. I argue that her iconoclasm carries with it a purist fetishism deriving from science's denied metaphysics. The metaphysics embedded in Nanda's secularist critique is no more innocent than that she wishes to smash, yet being denied is more tricky (...) to deal with. I claim Nanda's book is irresponsible both in the context of India's contesting social imaginaries, but also in the USA where she seeks to intervene in the so-called science wars. Taking seriously the neo-Buddhist Dalit resistance waged by those occupying the lowest rungs of the Hindu caste system, as Nanda prescribes, requires a refusal of metaphysics and positivist thought generally. Being unaware of the metaphysical ladeness of her critique, the ontological move that is necessary to achieve a shift to generative mode of thought that characterises Dalit Buddhism is invisible to Nanda. (shrink)

The literature on Dalit women largely deals with issues of violence and oppression based on intersections of class, caste, and gender. Women’s bodies, sexuality, and reproductive choices are linked to the ideological hegemony of the caste–gender nexus in India, with marriage and sexual relations playing crucial roles in maintaining caste boundaries. Often, the ways in which women manipulate their multiple, interlinked identities as women, Dalits, workers, and homemakers to resist control over their bodies, negotiate conjugal loyalty and love, and (...) construct a sense of selfhood is missed in the analyses. Based on research in rural Tamil Nadu, I analyze Dalit women’s narratives that reflect multiple concerns and dilemmas about marital choice and violence, generating in the process a deeper understanding of agency, voice, and gender relations, as fluid, dynamic, and intersecting in response to changing experiences, positionalities, and subjectivities. (shrink)